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Justice News

Connecticut Business Owner Pleads Guilty to Export Violation

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, today announced that IMRAN KHAN, 43, of North Haven, waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty yesterday in Hartford federal court to violating U.S. export law.

According to court documents and statements made in court, from at least 2012 to December 2016, KHAN and others were engaged in a scheme to purchase goods that were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) and export those goods without a license to Pakistan, in violation of the EAR. KHAN conducted business as Brush Locker Tools or as Kauser Enterprises-USA. When asked by U.S. manufacturers about the end-user for a product, KHAN either informed the manufacturer that the product would remain in the U.S., or he completed an end-user certification indicating that the product would not be exported.

After the products were purchased, they were shipped by the manufacturer to KHAN’s North Haven residence or Cerda Market in New Haven, a business owned by KHAN. The products were then shipped to Pakistan on behalf of either the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (“PAEC”), the Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (“SUPARCO”), or the National Institute of Lasers & Optronics (“NILOP”), all of which were listed on the U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List. KHAN never obtained a license to export any item to the designated entity even though he knew that a license was required prior to export.

KHAN pleaded guilty to one count of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In pleading guilty, KHAN specifically admitted that, between August 2012 and January 2013, he procured, received and exported to PAEC an Alpha Duo Spectrometer without a license to do so.

KHAN is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant on August 25, 2017, at which time he faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years. KHAN has been released on a $100,000 bond since he was arrested on December 13, 2016.

“The U.S. Attorney’s office in Connecticut is committed to working with our law federal law enforcement partners to ensure that sensitive technology, manufactured in the U.S. and elsewhere, does not fall into the wrong hands,” said U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly. “Repeated violations of our export laws will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

“The illegal exportation of sensitive technology to prohibited entities such as PAEC, SUPARCO and NILOP, poses a significant threat to our national security,” said Leigh-Alistair Barzey, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), Northeast Field Office. “Today’s guilty plea demonstrates DCIS’s ongoing commitment to work in partnership with the DOJ, FBI, HSI, Commerce Export Enforcement and the Postal Inspection Service, to protect our national security by prosecuting those who violate our export laws.”

This matter is being investigated by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacabed Rodriguez-Coss.